Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly
by Stahlfan125
Summary: Inspired by the H.I.M. song. Shannon knows that hurting Boone is like ripping the wings off a butterfly, but she can't stop. Shoone with a little bit of Skate.


Do _not _ask me to explain this! Hahaha. I was really bored and was watching the H.I.M. video for "Rip Out The Wings of a Butterfly", and this idea came to my head. I hope you enjoy it, and PLEASE review!

Note: The bit at the end…that's open for interpretation. You'll see what I mean :) I just couldn't resist a happy ending

* * *

**Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly**

Ten-year-old Shannon Rutherford sat in the grass in the backyard, one of her dolls in her lap. She didn't particularly like playing with dolls, but Sabrina was entertaining some wealthy clients inside, and she had to stay out of the way. Even at ten, Shannon knew that the best way to stay out of Sabrina's way was to stay out of the house entirely. And there wasn't much to do outside except play with dolls or run around and get dirty. Shannon hated getting dirty more, so she went with the dolls instead.

The thing about dolls that Shannon hated the most was that they didn't do anything. She was a very animated child, and she liked playmates that actually responded when she talked to them. That was why she liked playing with Boone, when he would. Though, being twelve, he didn't want to have much to do with her, unless he was so bored that there was nothing else to do.

Fortunately, Sabrina had gotten tired of him lurking around in the kitchen looking like a beaten dog, and she had sent him outside to play with a rude little shove. Shannon watched the way his shoulders curled up around his ears, and he flinched as if expecting Sabrina to hit him. Instead, she just turned and stalked into the house, a smile already forming on her lips for the clients, who smiled back politely. Boone walked across the yard towards her, his shoulders slumping dejectedly.

"Hey," he muttered sullenly, like it was her fault that he was being forced to talk to her.

"Hi," she said in a quiet voice, looking down at the ground. She was always a little shy around Boone, even after two years living under the same roof. He was kind of cute, she admitted, and when she was younger, she had a tiny crush on him. Though at ten she realized that it was wrong, she couldn't help that lingering shyness. "Do you want to play?"

Boone looked at her incredulously. She giggled. Of course, she had been kidding. She knew Boone would rather die than play with dolls. She pushed the dolls away absently and stood up.

"What are we supposed to do?" Boone asked, squinting as he looked around, his eyes sad. "There's nothing out here to play with."

"Sure there is," Shannon insisted. "There's lots! Come here!"

She frolicked through the long grass over to the garden that Sabrina had once aspired to keep neat, but was now overrun with weeds. She was too lazy even to hire a gardener to take care of the flowers. Fortunately, it provided a great play place for Shannon. She had built a fort there, long ago, and the tattered towel still hung over the rose bushes, out of the way of the angry thorns.

"What are you doing?" Boone asked, sighing heavily and following her like there was nothing he wanted to do less.

"Looking for a spider," Shannon proclaimed, bending down and looking around. Boone shuddered; he hated spiders.

"Why are you looking for a _spider_?" he asked curiously, despite himself.

"I was playing with Mark yesterday," Shannon replied, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder, a habit that would last years. "And he told me that you shouldn't be afraid of spiders, at least not the ones with the long legs, because you can just rip their legs off!"

Boone grimaced, looking sickened.

"That's disgusting, Shan," he said, his freckled nose wrinkled up. Shannon sighed and got to her feet.

"Not really," she said, shrugging. She stuck her tongue through the gap in her teeth where one was growing in. She did that often when she was thinking. She spotted a butterfly resting on the hedge, and shrugged, walking over to it. "I guess we can do it to butterflies, too."

"Shannon!" Boone exclaimed, horrified, running over to her and swatting her hands away from the unsuspecting insect. "What are you doing?"

"Ripping off its wings," Shannon said as if it wasn't a huge deal. Boone stared at her.

"Shannon, you do realize that butterflies and spiders are all…well, they're not people, but they're animals. They're like Princess."

Princess was Sabrina's cat, who Shannon happened to adore.

"No they're not," Shannon said, laughing slightly. "They don't have _feelings_, Boone! Mark told me.

"Mark was wrong," Boone said with a sigh. "Shannon, that kid's dumber than a rock! Trust me, butterflies can feel things too. And ripping their wings off is like the worst thing you can do."

"Why?" Shannon asked curiously. Boone sighed, wondering why he even had to explain this to Shannon.

"I don't know," he said, rolling his eyes. "I guess…it's like…you're not supposed to kill a mockingbird because they don't do anything bad. They don't eat crops or whatever. They just sing really pretty so people can hear. That's like butterflies; they just fly around, looking pretty. They don't hurt you, so there's no reason to hurt them."

"But they're so easy to catch," Shannon said with some disappointment. "They just keep flying back!"

"They trust that you won't hurt them," Boone said sadly. "But if you do, that's just even worse, because they're so trusting."

As if to prove a point, he stuck out his hand next to the leaf where the subject in question sat obliviously. When it saw Boone's hand, it climbed right on, flapping its wings with contentment. Shannon watched, almost mesmerized as its tiny legs made their way across Boone's little hand.

"Can I hold it?" she asked in a whisper, as if afraid she would scare the butterfly away.

"Sure," Boone said. "But don't hurt it."

"I won't," Shannon whispered as she moved her hand close to Boone's, and the butterfly eagerly walked across the gap, yellow and black wings fluttering in the light breeze from Shannon's eager breath.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Boone asked, with just a tough of smugness.

"Yeah," Shannon breathed, smiling at the tiny creature in her hands. As she watched, its wings flapped, and it lifted off into the air. "No, wait!" Shannon cried, but Boone held back her arms so she wouldn't reach for it.

"You have to let it go, Shan," he said in a quiet voice. "If it wants to go, you have to let it go. You cant trap it."

Shannon watched the butterfly fly away with a little bit of sadness, pouting slightly. But the butterfly was soon forgotten as she and Boone found another game to occupy their time.

* * *

Later that night, Shannon was sitting at the dinner table, waiting for everyone else to get there, with only Sabrina sitting across from her.

"So did you have fun today?" Sabrina asked, to make conversation. It wasn't like she actually _cared_.

"Not really," Shannon answered, shrugging. She was about to tell Sabrina about the butterfly when she heard Boone walking out of the living room, drooping as usual.

"I called you five minutes ago," Sabrina said with deadly annoyance. "Where were you?"

"I was shutting down the computer," Boone responded in a quiet voice.

"For five minutes?" Sabrina asked mockingly. "Somehow, I doubt it. Sit down! And don't make me regret giving birth to you even more than I already do."

Sabrina said that often, and Shannon always noticed how much the statement hurt Boone. She personally thought it was a very mean thing to say, and didn't understand why Sabrina would say it. She didn't think Boone should be regretted at all. In fact, he was the one good thing about her father's marriage to Sabrina.

She usually didn't say anything when Sabrina said that, but tonight was different. Tonight she was suddenly reminded of the butterfly.

"You shouldn't say stuff like that," she said in a confident voice that surprised her. She was usually terrified of Sabrina. She didn't know how she could stand up to her like she was…maybe because it was Boone, and she cared about Boone more than anyone, even more than her father sometimes. She didn't like it when Sabrina hurt him.

"Why not?" Sabrina asked a voice that said 'what are you doing talking to me like that?'.

"Because," Shannon said, taking a pause to take a sip of milk. "You're not supposed to rip out the wings of a butterfly."

"What?" Sabrina asked as if Shannon had just told her where babies came from.

"You're not supposed to…"

"I heard you," Sabrina said through her teeth. "But what I want to know is _what the hell_ you mean by that?"

Shannon glanced at Boone and saw that he was staring at her with a look that said he wasn't quite sure where she was going with it.

"Boone's like a butterfly," Shannon said slowly, so Sabrina would understand. "He trusts you, but you hurt him anyway. And it's not like he did anything bad to you. He didn't do anything except stand there and look cute. It's like you're ripping out the wings of a butterfly."

Sabrina stared at her, her mouth open slightly in surprise.

"I…" she started, but she wasn't quite sure what to say after that, so she just stared, wondering where Shannon had gotten that and why she was comparing Boone to a butterfly. If she had happened to glance at Boone, she would have seen that he was looking at the ground with a small smile on his face and a redder-than-usual tint to his already-red cheeks. Shannon just took another sip of her milk and smiled.

* * *

It was ten years later when Shannon stood in front of Boone in Sydney, Australia, holding her shoes in her hand and looking down at the ground with an almost embarrassed air, but she still hadn't forgotten the butterfly. It was like everything she did reminded her of that stupid speech he gave her. Every time she hurt him, she remembered it, and found herself wishing that she could be nicer to him. Because he truly was a butterfly, and she was the ignorant little kid who thought it'd be fun to torture him.

Knowing that she was doing it wasn't enough to set things straight, and that night she gave his wings another sharp tug, tearing them and ruining them once again, when she seduced him. She lured him onto her hand, stroking his velvety wings and whispering to him that he was beautiful and his wings were oh, so pretty. Then, she grabbed a wing and took hold and ripped it off.

"Get dressed," she spat. Another painful tear in the beautiful white design. She could almost imagine a butterfly in the palm of her hand, quivering and shaking and whimpering tiny little butterfly whimpers. And just as it was trying to fly away, she grabbed it and pulled it back, and the soft white velvet tore audibly. And she stared down at him, horrified, and she reached out her hand and gently soothed him, her fingers dancing over the silky texture, knowing that it wouldn't be long before she grabbed hold of another wing and hurt him all over again.

* * *

On the island, the pain only continued. She ripped his wings into a thousand shreds, tore them in half and dangled the pieces in front of his face as he stared at her with sad eyes. She stepped on him and spat on him and threw him to the ground, but he crawled back looking for protection every time. He came to her for protection from her. She knew it was wrong that she exploited him like she did, but she couldn't help it. It was too easy. He was too simple to catch, too easy to hurt, too easier to break. She just had to reach out a hand and that would be the last of him.

It wasn't until she threw him too hard, stepped on him with too much force, and tore off every last piece of wing that she realized the full extent of what she had done. As she stared down at his body, his beautiful face, and the blood that covered him, she was suddenly haunted by the image of a beautiful, fluttering butterfly, torn to pieces by someone's malicious greed. That was what she had done. She had _killed_ the only man she had ever truly loved. Maybe not directly, but she had killed him nonetheless.

* * *

But, like she always had, she pretended that it didn't hurt her. After a few days, she had utterly convinced herself that Boone was just off hunting somewhere. He wasn't dead. She hadn't made his life a living hell. She hadn't killed him. She told herself over and over again that she wasn't the cause, and that she had nothing to feel guilty for. It didn't matter what she told herself, though. She knew.

She got involved with Sayid, convincing herself that a new relationship was exactly what she needed. But she couldn't ever convince herself to fall in love with him like she had fallen for Boone. Because Sayid wasn't a butterfly. Sayid was like Shannon. He was the kind of person who, given the chance, would rip the wings off of a butterfly in a moment. She couldn't love a person like that; not fully. She couldn't love him because of all the problems she had with herself. He was too like her, though he'd probably have scoffed at the comparison. She didn't care. She knew she was right.

* * *

She was sitting on the beach by herself when Kate happened to walk up. Kate had been trying to talk to her for about a week, ever since she had become vocal again. Shannon would talk to Claire and Sun, but she never really liked Kate. Still, she tolerated the other woman. And when Kate came and sat with her that day, she could see that something was wrong with her.

"What's wrong?" she asked patiently, though inwardly she found herself thinking that she really didn't give a shit what was wrong with Kate.

"Umm…nothing," Kate lied unconvincingly. Shannon sighed.

"You know…you think a fugitive would be a better liar," she remarked. "It's obvious. You miss Sawyer."

The little jump that Kate gave, as if Shannon had poked her with something, was answer enough. Shannon smiled.

"Yeah," she said sadly. "You miss him."

"I…guess," Kate admitted sullenly. Shannon smiled and looked at Kate with some speculation.

"You know," she said, not really sure where she was going to go with this. "I've decided that there are two kinds of people in this world."

"Men and woman?" Kate asked with a small smile. Shannon laughed quietly.

"No," she said. "Though there's that too. No, there's butterflies, and there's the people who rip out the wings of the butterflies."

"What?" Kate asked, arching an eyebrow. This was clearly not the answer she was expecting.

"Butterflies are trusting," Shannon said. "They're open. They crawl into your hand willingly and surrender complete control to you. They don't do anything wrong except they're _there_. Then there's the people that rip out the wings of the butterflies. They see the butterfly in their hands, they see how absolutely beautiful it is, and they know that they can love it and nurture it and take care of it…but for whatever reason they feel this horrible temptation in them to rip out its wings, just to see if it'll still stay. And when it does stay with them, when it sticks through the pain and the torture, then they just torture it more, to see how much it can take before it breaks. And if the butterfly flies away, well they just pull it back again, and torture it some more."

"So you're saying that people are either good or bad?" Kate said slowly.

"Those people aren't necessarily bad…they just have a power that they use wrongly."

"Then what about the people who have the butterflies in their hands…but they let it go?"

"Those _are _the butterflies," Shannon answered. Kate looked at her quizzically, so Shannon continued. "Now, Sawyer, believe it or not, is a butterfly. He's been though a hard life, that much is obvious, and at a young age he was beaten and abused and had his wings ripped out by someone who was too stupid or too blind to appreciate his true beauty. You know, like, as a person. So he hardened. He tried to be one of those people who would rip out the wings of a butterfly. But you can't change…and Sawyer hasn't changed. He's still a butterfly. Now, the question is…are you going to rip out his wings, or not?"

Shannon got up and walked away, leaving Kate to ponder her words behind her.

* * *

Shannon sat at Boone's gravesite, her eyes filled with tears as she stared at the small little cross with his name on it. She had stumbled across it by accident, actually. She was looking for Walt, because she had seen him in the woods, and Vincent led her to Boone's grave. It was, seriously, the last place she wanted to be, but once she got there, she just couldn't leave.

As she was sitting there, a white butterfly, the biggest one she had ever seen, landed on Boone's cross. Shannon stared at it, then slowly inched forward and let it crawl onto her finger, some of the powder from its wings drifting down gracefully. She smiled at it sadly and reached up her other hand, stroking its wings. For a moment, a horrible temptation seized her, and she wanted to pull off its wings. But then she let her hand fall limply to the ground, and she let the butterfly fly off into the air.

As soon as it was out of sight, her head dropped into her hands, and she cried.

* * *

Shannon died that day. Kate still found it hard to grasp as, one week later, she walked through the woods with Sawyer. That had been a horrible day; first Sawyer had been brought back, shot and half-dead, then Sayid had wandered into the hatch carrying Shannon's body and crying. At Shannon's funeral, she was buried next to Boone's grave, and as Kate had noticed the large white butterfly hovering over them, she had started to cry.

One week hadn't made much difference. She was still withdrawn and quiet and refused to speak with Ana-Lucia, instead spending all her time helping Sawyer recover. He was doing remarkably better, and this was their first venture out of the hatch. Sawyer seemed to be relieved to get out of there.

"You think it'd be better sleeping in a warm bed," he grumbled as they walked down the path towards the beach. "I just wanna go back to plain ol' sand!"

Kate laughed under her breath. Suddenly, Sawyer stopped and bent down to the ground, picking something up. She turned and looked at him, and saw that he was holding a butterfly on his outstretched finger. It was a large blue and black one, dark and beautiful. Sawyer stared at it, and for a moment, Kate was certain he was going to rip off its wings. But then he slowly let it fly off into the air, watching it as it disappeared into the trees. He turned and saw Kate watching him. He saw the look on her face, as if she had just seen something absolutely astonishing.

"What?" he asked self-consciously. Kate smiled thoughtfully.

"Nothing," she said quietly. "Come on, let's go."

And as Kate and Sawyer continued walking, Kate could have sworn that she heard the laughter of a woman behind her, but when she turned around, all she saw was two butterflies fluttering through the air; one white and one blue and black. With a small smile, she turned and walked on.


End file.
